• Patti Smith, Spiritualized & Ariel Pink @ Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Dublin

    June 3, 2015 - By 

    The last remnants of the Forbidden Fruit stages are being taken down. A few straggling food tents and vans are dotted around the edges of the field beside the obligatory Bulmers festival stands. And the rain is pouring down. It’s only through an organisational miracle that this gig is going ahead at all, really. What was originally meant to be an outdoors affair has instead been forced into two big tops, meaning that those who were lucky enough to secure tickets are tightly squeezed in. However, the lack of space in no way impacts on the energy at tonight’s triumvirate…

  • Guided By Voices – Motivational Jumpsuit

    February 26, 2014 - By 

    Another year, another Guided By Voices record. You should know the score by now: 20 tracks, few of which break the two minute mark, filled with song fragments, little moments of beauty, and the occasional full-fledged composition. In this regard, the new GBV album is little different from its predecessors, surfing on the comfortable wave they’ve been on since they arrived re-invigorated from the wilderness with the release of Let’s Go Eat The Factory in January 2012. None of which is to say that it’s in any way a bad record. On the contrary, it’s an album that rarely has…

  • Pre-murmurings: REM and Chronic Town

    August 22, 2013 - By 

    Some records become bigger than the music contained on them. The infamous Exile on Main St. sessions are more mythologised and discussed than the music they produced. Chinese Democracy will always be better remembered for its protracted development than for its songs. REM’s debut release, Chronic Town, brings its own baggage to the table: the birth of college-rock as we know it. The record that breathed new life into the electric guitar as a creative instrument in an era awash with New Wave synths. A reputation for being enigmatic and inscrutable, with secrets hidden in every groove. The stories surrounding…

  • Scott and Charlene’s Wedding – Any Port In A Storm

    August 7, 2013 - By 

    Moving to a new city can be hard. The initial bewilderment at unfamiliar surroundings can quickly give way to crushing loneliness, self-doubt and yearning for days gone by. Working dead-end jobs to make the rent; becoming infatuated in seconds and watching it fade just as quickly; a never-ending supply of encouraging words from newfound friends in bars you’ll never see again. All familiar moments in a life that might be ‘just getting started’, but is constantly dogged by a desire to return to a time when such troubles simply didn’t exist. Scott & Charlene’s Wedding’s second album, Any Port in…

  • Classic Album: The Blue Nile – Hats

    July 23, 2013 - By 

    Every so often, an album slips through the cracks. It may have inspired quiet critical praise among the attentive, but for the most part the record sinks without trace into the mists of obscurity. Some albums are eventually rescued from this fate – The Velvet Underground & Nico being the most famous example of a record posthumously put on a pedestal – but the majority of these forgotten critics’ darlings are left to be cherished by a devoted few, doomed to pop up occasionally on ‘Forgotten Classics’ blogs or Channel 4 specials before fading away again. Despite having an older…